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Television Media

New Linux PVR Box 319

Posted by timothy from the improving-the-boob-tube dept.
An anonymous reader points to this product from Interact-TV, known as Telly, writing "Cool little box. PVR, stores photos, burns VCDs or DVDs (if you get a DVD burner), serves up stored content on your home network, nice gui, works with some satellite and digital cable boxes, 2.4.18 kernel. Freevo or mythTV can do about the same thing but this one is ready out of the box."
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New Linux PVR Box More

New Linux PVR Box

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  • always room for more competition. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sweeney37 ( 325921 ) * <mikesweeneyNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @08:29PM (#6448918) Homepage Journal
    Now that I have a TiVo I could never give it up. But the fact this offers network connectivity, 5.1 digital out, and composite video is quite impressive. The price may seem a little steep, but a new TiVo with a lifetime subscription is about 650-700, but this box is subscription free.

    The real question is the interface going to be able to compete with TiVo? The ability to do season-passes are (IMO) what will make it or break it.

    Mike

    • PVR pricing needs work (Score:5, Interesting)

      by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) * on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @08:55PM (#6449091)
      You can get network connectivity with a non-authorized ethernet card for Tivos. Do a google search, I think they run about 60 bucks. As far as composite out goes, maybe a video geek can help out here, but considering the source (cable/satellite) it may just be that the law of diminishing returns kicks in real hard after a point and its may not be worth it.

      I kinda dig the standard directivo. Dual tuners, S-Video out, etc. I'd much rather see a cheaper tivo that doesn't hurt the pocketbook too much than just more feature creep.

      From the website:

      >Buy your Telly MC1000 Home Entertainment Server today for only $899.00

      Err no thanks. Where's that $100 Tivo?
      • Tivo2 supports Ethernet. And with the new "Home Media Option" you can even listen to your MP3 collection and surf your digital photo library. Of course at an extra $99 (one time charge) also gives you the ability to add to your play lists remotely... but at $300 (lifetime subscription) + $350 (hardware) + $99 (home media) + $50 (usb 802.11b wireless) + $50 and up (cable bill monthly) why the hell do I drive a piece of crap car again?
      • I'd much rather see a cheaper tivo that doesn't hurt the pocketbook too much than just more feature creep.

        So you'd rather save $50 than get one that allowed you to record your shows to DVDs? With that, you'd probably save money in the long-term, seeing how much cheaper DVD-Rs are than hard drive space (not to mention you'd save $80-100 not needing a seperate DVD player).

        • Re:PVR pricing needs work (Score:5, Insightful)

          by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) * on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @10:07PM (#6449555)
          Yep. I think the $99 price point is the magic number to keep the Tivo company going and help popularize the technology before the media companies drive Tivo out of the market with their own branded DVRs which will most likely have some sleeping DRM feature that will one day make that handy commercial skip useless or push ads or who knows what else.

          In fact my directivo was $129 at the time. The directv tuner was $60. So for double that I got a Tivo and have been very impressed with the technology since.

          A few people I know have echoed similiar statements "Yeah its awesome but I'm not dropping $250 on a kick-ass VCR." Neither would I.

          • Re:PVR pricing needs work (Score:4, Insightful)

            by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @10:40PM (#6449750) Journal
            A few people I know have echoed similiar statements "Yeah its awesome but I'm not dropping $250 on a kick-ass VCR." Neither would I.

            My whole point was, if it had more significant features, people would be willing to get one. It can't really replace VCRs because there is no removable media, nothing you can remove from the unit, keep in storage, or pass on to a friend.

            In fact my directivo was $129 at the time. The directv tuner was $60.

            But that's not comparable to a standalone unit that has to do the encoding itself. First off, it's going to be a long time before prices drop that low (computers only recently reached the $200 price point, and Tivos are souped-up computers). Besides, even if they get the hardware down to $100, people are still paying a good deal of money to tivo every month, or spending something like $200 more up front on top of the $100 pricetag. Personally, paying $20/month for Tivo would nearly double my monthly TV expenses, and all for a unit that still can't hope to replace a single VCR...
      • Where's that $100 Tivo?

        Here it is. [poweron.com]

        But it's $115.

    • I have to agree with the TiVo comment. I have DirecTV TiVo, and I simply love the interface. I only wish that it could use that interface to play DVDs (10 second replay, progress indicator, remote).

      Another DVR would have to go a long way to pull me away.
    • have you seen the tivo home media option? you plug it into your network, then you have access to your MP3 collection to be available to your stereo, you have access to your photos through your TV, if you have multiple tivo's you have access to the programming sotred on the other tivo's. there is one more thing it lets you do but I am at a loss as to what it is.

  • doesn't support dvd writing *yet* (Score:5, Informative)

    by Palos ( 527071 ) * on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @08:32PM (#6448934)
    From the FAQ [interact-tv.com]:
    Can you record and store TV programs and later burn them on a CD?
    Yes, Telly's Video Library supports an archiving feature. Eventually Telly will support DVD burning; the current MC1000 supports a CD-RW drive. You will be able to expand your unit to include a DVD-RW drive in the near future.

    Also you can't pause the live feed which is imo one of the best features of Tivo

    Is it possible to pause/rewind/skip-commercials of live TV broadcasts?
    Currently not on live TV broadcasts, but once recorded, you can skip 30-second intervals, pause, and rewind.

  • Backup your DVDs? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sid crimson ( 46823 )

    Not today, but Telly's features don't stop. We will always push the envelope, enhancing features and adding new Telly capabiltities... and being able to make personal use copies of DVDs is on the list!


    If they push the envelope like they claim they will, this will be one excellent box. At $899.00, it's pricey for all but the serious buyers... however it's tough to come in cheaper for a do-it-yourself solution.

    -sid

    • Re:Backup your DVDs? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @12:46AM (#6450319)
      I am at about $500, plus a bit of blood/sweat/tears, for mine. Admittedly, the video card was one I had lying around (an old TNT2 with a broken GPU fan that is still holding up nicely).

      Still, the biggest thing holding back MythTV and Freevo is the periodic changes made to the TV listings (the most recent one involved me making manual database changes to get it to change the channel when recording). Until a free, low-bandwidth solution to TV listings is devised (good luck there), this will always be a problem.

  • Price prohibitive (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pheared ( 446683 ) <kevinNO@SPAMpheared.net> on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @08:36PM (#6448963) Homepage
    Buy your Telly MC1000 Home Entertainment Server today for only $899.00

    Hell, pick up three or four.

    Until these things cost the same as a VCR I couldn't possibly justify paying the price.

    Of course, I am just about to justify the price of cable, so I guess I'm already a step behind most couch jockeys. It's just that the return of Ren and Stimpy is such an enticing reason to get cable.
    • Until these things cost the same as a VCR I couldn't possibly justify paying the price

      Considering DVR technology is still in its infancy, the price is rather good. In 1983 our RCA VCR/Camcorder combo cost almost $2000. If you wanted to shoot video away from the TV, you were required to carry 3/4 of the twenty pound VCR with you. I think the unit without the camcorder was $1300 or so, adjust that for inflation and your looking at about $2500 for that VCR. Good thing these things aren't at VCR prices..

    • Until these things cost the same as a VCR I couldn't possibly justify paying the price.

      Well, since VCRs cost $40, have fun waiting. Other people on this planet are far more realistic...

      Personally, I wouldn't get it until it gets some more features, and the price drops to about 1/3rd the price, but at least that's a realistic possibility.

  • Telly™ (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Blue Stone ( 582566 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @08:37PM (#6448965) Homepage Journal
    Telly?

    Bad choice for a trademarked name?
    Here in the UK, "telly" is the generic term for television.

    • Re:Telly™ (Score:5, Funny)

      by kawika ( 87069 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @09:24PM (#6449269)
      Here in the States, middle-aged nerds like me think of England mostly in terms of Monty Python. When I heard the name and saw it's Linux based, I immediately thought of the "There's a penguin on the telly" sketch. In this case, there's a penguin IN the Telly!

  • You'll pry my TiVo out of my cold dead hands... (Score:5, Informative)

    by rtphokie ( 518490 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @08:38PM (#6448980)
    Actually my DirecTiVo. Beautiful digital signal from the bird so high in the sky straight to disk. No recompresssion. Far higher quality than this or any other PVR (other than DishNetwork's PVR).

    • I'm curious about the bugs I've seen in my DirecTiVo and I'm wondering if anyone else has seen them too. The unit is a new HNS HDVR2.
      1) When turning on the unit and going straight to the "now playing" list, when you play something, there is no audio. To get audio, you must go to "live tv" and then back to your show on the playlist.
      2) When using the fast-forward (or the skip 30) features, the audio will drop out for a few seconds sometime after you resume playing at normal speed. It seems to happen every
      • >2) When using the fast-forward (or the skip 30) features, the audio will drop out for a few seconds sometime after you resume playing at normal speed. It seems to happen every time and only mutes the sound for about 2 or 3 seconds.

        The TiVo is probably searching for the next GOP, audio frame, or perhaps I frame. I suppose it could move backwards and compute where to cut the video, but that'd be a pain, and why bother? This is a problem inherent in all MPEG video.

        With the skip 30 feature, it should ju
        • The audio problem described is actually a recently introduced bug. Even then, it isn't 2-3 seconds. it is probably less than 1 second (atleast for me). Some cable boxes take longer to synch the sound/video and the tivo can sometimes exagerate it; this only occurs when changing channels though.
      • You should know that I just got a DirecTiVo 5 days ago and I LOVE the thing. I'm ready to start saying that "...out of my cold dead hands" line. That said, I've expiranced NONE of these issues and I haven't heard of anyone with the box I have having any of these issues. I have a Phillips DVR-7000. From what I've heard, other than the faceplate having a different layout, it's IDENTICLE to the HDVR2. That said, I haven't had a single problem and I love it. My only compliant is that when editing the Season Pas
    • Far higher quality than this or any other PVR (other than DishNetwork's PVR).


      Gee, you mean this thing can't possibly compete with an entirely different type of device? What a shocker!

      Your DirecTivo is never going to replace my refrigerator!

  • Okay ... NO (Score:5, Funny)

    by SuperDuG ( 134989 ) <`be' `at' `eclec.tk'> on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @08:39PM (#6448986) Homepage Journal
    $899???

    Hell I can build an "almost" top of the line PC for that. The software doesn't look all that impressive and it is still a PC that doesn't look like an entertainment center applaince. Reading the specs of a VIA C3 sub 1 GHz processor with 256 megs of 2100 Ram. This thing is a $200 PC for almost a grand.

    But it runs linux, wait no, that's free.

    Seems like quite the not good deal ...

    • Re:Okay ... NO (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kawika ( 87069 )
      You have not priced out the components being used. It's a Coolermaster aluminum case for one thing, and includes a very nice wireless mouse and keyboard. So it is NOT a "$200 PC" by any means. The mobo/CPU and TV/video card probably cost that much, then you have to add an 80GB drive and DVD/CD-RW combo drive. And although it does run Linux they have their own (closed-source) software on top of that.

      However, I have to agree that it does seem very expensive if you value your time at $0/hr and would prefer to
    • Well, I think this [interact-tv.com] would look just fine next to a TV and stereo, certainly better then a generic white box. Not too sure about the wireless keyboard, I wonder how often you actually have to use that. A whole keyboard would look pretty silly sitting on the coffee table all the time.

    • Re:Okay ... NO (Score:4, Insightful)

      by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @09:12PM (#6449199) Journal
      The software doesn't look all that impressive

      That's quite relative. It might not sound impressive, but that's probably because you've never attempted to get a Linux box working as a PVR... It might not be software that requires a lot of effort for a programmer to create, but since nothing like it exists in the Open Source world, it is somewhat impressive.

      MythTV looks like a good start, but the effort required to get it working is significant, and it doesn't do anything BUT timeshift and record. It can't playback your DVD, VCDs, SVCDs, or Divx CDs, it can't save your recorded shows to CD/DVD, it can't playback music or display images, etc... Once MythTV/Freevo gets all these features, then this current software won't be that impressive. For now, since there is nothing else out there like it, it certainly is impresive.

      Take a look at Tivo. People are paying truckloads of money for boxes without half the features this thing has. Admitedly, this is missing a couple features Tivo has, but I believe that could be easily fixed.

      • Re:Okay ... NO (Score:5, Informative)

        by Dark_Nova ( 27836 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @09:27PM (#6449291)

        MythTV looks like a good start, but the effort required to get it working is significant, and it doesn't do anything BUT timeshift and record. It can't playback your DVD, VCDs, SVCDs, or Divx CDs, it can't save your recorded shows to CD/DVD, it can't playback music or display images, etc... Once MythTV/Freevo gets all these features, then this current software won't be that impressive.


        MythTV has most of these features as add-on modules [mythtv.org]. MythTV's modular design means that there are an ever-growing number of modules that can be used to extend it's already rich feature-set.

      • Re:Okay ... NO (Score:4, Informative)

        by atrus ( 73476 ) <atrus&atrustrivalie,org> on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @10:45PM (#6449775) Homepage
        MythTV actually has very mature modules that let you play your music library, your DivX file library, check the weather, browse images. Removeable media support (Playback & reading) is absent.

      • Re:Okay ... NO (Score:5, Informative)

        by tfoss ( 203340 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @11:28PM (#6450008)
        MythTV looks like a good start, but the effort required to get it working is significant, and it doesn't do anything BUT timeshift and record. It can't playback your DVD, VCDs, SVCDs, or Divx CDs, it can't save your recorded shows to CD/DVD, it can't playback music or display images, etc... Once MythTV/Freevo gets all these features, then this current software won't be that impressive. For now, since there is nothing else out there like it, it certainly is impresive.

        Um, really? [mythtv.org]

        • Rip, categorize, play, and visualize MP3/Ogg/FLAC/CD Audio files. (FLAC and Vorbis encoding only). Create complex playlists (and playlists containing playlists) through a simple UI.
        • An image viewer/slideshow application.
        • A generic video player module, with automatic metadata lookups.

        -Ted

    • Re:Okay ... NO (Score:4, Informative)

      by ziggy_zero ( 462010 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @01:23AM (#6450434)
      If you want to build your own, here's what you can use to get a close approximation to the Telly MC1000:

      Cooler Master ATC-620C-BX1 (Black) Desktop Case - 108
      Foxconn Allied MicroATX 200W Power Supply - 21
      VIA Motherboard and Integrated 1GHz Nehemiah CPU EPIA-M10000 - 178
      Western Digital "Special Edition" 80GB Hard drive - 92
      Crucial 256MB PC2100 DDR SDRAM - 42
      Lite-On 48x24x48x16 DVD-ROM/CD-RW Drive (Black) - 65
      I guess you'll have to find a TV Tuner card that's compatible with Linux, and can go in a PCI slot - 100?
      I can't find that wireless keyboard, I know I've seen it on NewEgg before though, I don't think it's more than 50
      Linux - free
      Freevo or MythTV - free
      Cables and adapters - 20

      Total cost: ~$680

      So, if you wanted to save yourself some money, I guess you could do that. Needless to say, you won't get a fancy User's Manual or remote control (unless you manage to get a TV Tuner card with one).

      Some notes:
      You could not use the VIA integrated mobo/proc thing, and use a MicroATX motherboard and an AMD processor, and use an AGP TV Tuner card.

      All of the prices (unless I was guessing) came from NewEgg.com.

    • Re:Okay ... NO (Score:5, Funny)

      by mr. methane ( 593577 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @02:55AM (#6450718) Journal
      A while ago I might have said the same thing.. but to a lot of people, time is more valuable. I've had a PVR since they were pretty new (3 years+?) and even though I paid something like $699 for it, I consider it a terrific buy.

      I figure I watch 10 hours of TV a week. Probably 7 hours are stations with commercials. 20 minutes per hour X 7 hours, that's 2 hours and 20 minutes a week I *don't* spend watching tampax ads.

      In other words, in last three years, I've avoided wasting 400 hours on commercials. I figure my time is worth about $50 an hour, so that's $20k in "free time" I've had available to do other things.

      Valuable things.

      Like posting rants on slashdot.
  • This thing is a small fortune at 900$ plus tax. How do they expect to compete with that kind of barrier to entry? How do they justify that price when everything else I've seen is half that or less in the case of Tivo?

    I'll pass thanks.

  • Cool.. but my Xbox does that as well... (Score:4, Funny)

    by mianbao ( 666582 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @08:41PM (#6449000)
    Cool.. but my Xbox does that as well...
  • The price seems a bit steep, with high end PVRs coming in a lot cheaper...

    Maybe good for the enthusiast or rich man, doesn't seem like an average joe would pay $899 for a "linux tivo" (In their eyes)

  • Is it quiet? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @08:43PM (#6449022)
    I can't find anything on the marketing overview page about it being quiet or not. You'd think they would trumpet, so to speak, the fact if it were a quiet box.

  • Looks to me like its an all-around analog DVR (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ultrapenguin ( 2643 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @08:43PM (#6449023)
    The specs include a TV tuner and analog S-Video/Composite inputs. $899 is an OK price to pay for an integrated box, but most people (i dunno, I do) probably have enough parts laying around to make something exactly like this out of common parts.

    And, analog mpeg-2 capture isn't exactly something to be proud of. Hardware mpeg2 encoder cards can be picked up for $100 these days, and this "DVR" doesn't offer any of the advanced features such as skipping during live shows, etc, so why pay more for almost standard PC hardware?

    Now if this supported hdtv recording via firewire, or direct mpeg2 recording off dish network or whatever is today's digital satellite system, that would make it worth the money.

    Analog mpeg2 DVRs dont impress me anymore, too much quality loss, not enough features to make me switch from using a normal PC for similar capture tasks.

    • And, analog mpeg-2 capture isn't exactly something to be proud of. Hardware mpeg2 encoder cards can be picked up for $100 these days

      What is this? Buzzword bingo? Would you mind explaining to me what "analong mpeg-2 capture" is?

      Since standard TV-signals are analog, anything you do would still be analog capture. You mention HDTV/Satellite, but if that's what you were talking about, why the mention of $100 hardware MPEG-2 encoder cards? If you were saying that software MPEG-2 capture isn't that impressiv

      • Yeah, as in I wouldn't buy this machine to capture ANALOG video out from my DIGITAL HDTV tuner just to re-encode it to MPEG2 inside Telly. I would rather just get a box that takes the original MPEG2 data out of the tuner via its firewire port and COPY that. Aka products like Tivo-DVB (or something, like that), any of HDTV HDD/DVD recording combos, etc. If I wanted to capture ANALOG video outputs, I would just buy a capture card for the PC. There are no HDTV capturing cards that take straight mpeg2ts str

  • The Be All End All (Score:5, Funny)

    by felonious ( 636719 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @08:45PM (#6449035) Journal
    Why hasn't a company come out with an adult version of the PVR?

    Name it the "Porn-O-Tron" or "Porn-O-Matic"

    Include a subscription business model with various channels of varying fetishes, etc. and market it as just that. Tie it all together and the customers will flood the place...ok bad pun but you get the idea.

    You could even tie in various adult products that plug into the box and someone on the other end could operate them for $19 a minute. Virtual Spanktravision might even be a better name or sub-brand as long as it doesn't canabalize the main brand.

    Porn is BIG business and why hasn't a visionary other than myself come up with this?

    • various channels

      ummm...a digital video recorder, or personal video recorder doesnt magically have its own shows..it just records shows that are already there...

      so how exactly could one be an "adult version"

      i know you were trolling but it wasnt even close....

    • Re:The Be All End All (Score:4, Funny)

      by glwtta ( 532858 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @11:58PM (#6450148) Homepage
      Include a subscription business model with various channels of varying fetishes, etc. and market it as just that.

      Um... It's called the Internet?

    • Are you trolling, or do you just not understand what a PVR is for? What you are talking about is a Set Top Box combined with a subscription-based content delivery system.

      Or, you could just deliver the content over the WWW for little more than the cost of bandwidth.

      You can always just run a simple web store and sell video clips for low prices, I figure this is the next step in pornography.

  • They used a coolermaster chassi (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This one's really cool, I have planned to build my own system based on MythTV, and that's exactly the chassi I had in mind, it looks so HiFi.

    http://coolermaster.com/case/p620.htm

    • Re:They used a coolermaster chassi (Score:4, Interesting)

      by kawika ( 87069 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @09:18PM (#6449232)
      It is a very nice looking box, but it is BIG and most likely too noisy to put next to your TV if used with anything but the ITX boards. It's the size of the old desktop PC cases. There are two 5-inch and two 3-inch bays in the thing. If you fill it with peripherals it will generate way too much heat.

      The Hush [mini-itx.com] looks like it would be much more compatible with an A/V stack, but notice the price and you'll see that the Telly isn't that far off price-wise. And the hush is "just" a PC with no PVR functionality set up on it!

  • Real reason why it's $899 ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @08:47PM (#6449047)
    • $75 for the hard drive
    • $25 for the chassis
    • $799 for the rights to use the name "Telly" [tellysavalas.com]!!

      Who loves ya Baby?

    • $75 for the hard drive

      $70 for the chassis

      $200 for the computery bits

      $50 for the keyboard and remote

      Coming up with a cruddy name and lackluster website to sell the system to the masses... priceless.
      • Hmmm - "Cruddy website"...makes me suspicious (well, actaully, reading /. also makes me chronically suspicious)...

        For a legit company, with an expensive product, it *is* a really cruddy site - lots of small images that you can't see in detail, nothing but duplicate pages in the descriptions, bold-faced words when value is stressed too hard, and the PVR looks like a PShopped-bit of Onkyo stereo hardware. I could make this site in an hour or two if I had content (for which I would need a marketing weasel).

        B

  • Bets? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jay Maynard ( 54798 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @08:48PM (#6449052) Homepage
    Anyone want to start a pool on how long this will last before the MPAA gets them shut down?

    I'll take a month...
  • Anyone thinking of getting one should strike now before the lawsuits begin and the features are slowly removed or crippled.
  • $900 PVR, $50 TV card and cron...tough choice... Maybe in a few years when these things are a common appliance (and priced like today's VCRs).

    • People who state things like this just don't get what a TiVo-like device can do. Yeah, even your VCR can do the cron job thing, but who ever used a VCR to record shows (what a hassle, and what happens if no one puts your blank tape back in)?

      It's so much more than just a simple cron job. Being able to flag a show or type of show and have it automatically record what you like without you having to tell it the time/date and channel is what makes this sort of thing useful.

      My TiVo knows me so well that I nev
      • I know TiVo can do that. I just don't want it to.
        There are a few select shows that I want to watch. I have less than ten cron entries to record them.
        I don't want it to make decisions for me or suggest that I watch some other show.

  • Whoa, itvXUL? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ultrapenguin ( 2643 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @08:57PM (#6449106)
    From the description of their "media OS" based on Linux, http://interact-tv.com/EOS.php [interact-tv.com], I noticed something...

    ItvXUL: XML based description language for describing itvgui based applications.

    Does that mean their UI is based on http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xul/ [mozilla.org]?

  • "I can do it better" ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Quixote ( 154172 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @09:07PM (#6449168) Homepage Journal
    I have been considering doing one too. But I can't seem to find a decent capture card for Linux that will do realtime MPEG2 (or even MPEG1) compression in hardware, so that you can pause live TV, record one show while watching another, etc.

    Any ideas?

  • I have a mini-itx box that is cheaper and (subjectively) cooler looking. I just don't have a remote, but who cares with a RF keyboard/mouse combo... Now what I want to know is, if that is based on Linux, then is there any way to get the software so that I can turn my own box into a PVR? Now that's an OSS I'm looking forward to! :-)

    Bonus: look for the following and you too can build a Tivo out of your old PC's spare parts: Via Epia M 933 Mhz [viavpsd.com], Cubid 2699R mini-itx case (also in black) [mini-itx.com], IBM Wireless Navigator [vtama.com]
  • ...and he isn't going to explode.

    (Still looking for Penguin on the Telly).
  • At $900, it's too expensive. But remember, VCR's started out at $1k.

    A next gen one of these (cheaper, more features..DVD-RW, pause live video, etc etc) will bring Linux to the masses. Easy network with the house LAN, bigger HD for general storage, web server and access from anywhere, reasonable GUI...

    But they won't know or care. The guts of the GUI and Linux kernel will be hidden, so Joe TV can't screw it up.

    Root access? What's that? Oh...the 'Config' button on the remote that asks for a password so I

  • Interlaced TV output? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WD ( 96061 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @09:16PM (#6449221)
    Sounds like a neat unit, but I have one question...

    TV-Out cards (or video cards with TV-out) generally deinterlace the signal in the process of converting the signal to something that the TV can understand.

    The advantage of this is that the picture can easily be scaled to handle overscan. But the disadvantage is that the image quality, especially in panning scenes, is compromised. An interlaced NTSC signal will display 59.94 fields per second. This will allow for smooth motion, especially in the example of a scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen. When the signal is deinterlaced, that rate is cut in half to 29.97 and there can be blurring in areas of fast motion.

    If this unit is using standard PC hardware, then it is likely deinterlacing the output. If so, it would make a pretty poor replacment for a DVD player. So much for an all-in-one solution...

    Does this Telly unit have true interlaced TV output? If so, how is it achieved?
    • From the website.....
      Does the DVD player provide any special features (such as multi-zone, progressive scan, etc.)?

      If you were to attach a progressive scan monitor to the SVGA connector, you have progressive scan DVD playback. The TV output is interlaced to work with normal television sets.

    • All TV is interlaced unless your talking about 100HZ or progressive scan TV's.

      The problem with these sets displaying fast motion is that they merge the field together to give one full frame. This is great for a drama, but if you want to watch the footy, then the ball is moving so quick it is in a different position in each field. If you merge these fields together you get an elongated ball. Some of the newer sets have a funky setting to fix this and I have no idea how it works, but it uses

      • So while you PC monitor is de-interlaced, anything getting sent out the TV out part of the card must be interlaced. And if you use an S video cable you should be getting quality that equals your average DVD player.

        Say you are playing an interlaced video clip (such as an MPEG2 from a DVD) on a PC. When it's played back on a PC Monitor, interlaced material will show both fields simultaneously. (giving the "mouse tooth" effect on motion scenes). Most software DVD players for the PC will use Bob, Weave

    • TV-Out cards (or video cards with TV-out) generally deinterlace the signal in the process of converting the signal to something that the TV can understand.

      No, TV-Out cards must *interlace* the signal. Computer video output is normally NOT interlaced, but most standard-definition television sets require interlace. Most HDTV sets can support both interlaced and progressive signals, although it is typical that they support 720p and 1080i but not 1080p.

      If you use a TV capture card to view a standard-def

  • It cries to be a Beos App! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) * <teamhasnoi@@@yahoo...com> on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @09:20PM (#6449236) Journal
    I still think this is a place where some enterprising young/old upstart programmer could make a name for him/her self. Write a Beos PVR or port Myth TV (which seems to be updated quite frequently).

    Beos is already in use professionally as a audio scheduler (Tunetracker), I see no reason that video can't be added.

    Of special note, using Beos would allow you to 'roll your own' on *much* cheaper hardware than Win or Linux - an old Pentium 233/64 ram most likely could handle the job, since it is ass-fast on old boxen. Add a big ol' harddrive and you're in bidness.

  • How about a simplistic modem you can plug into the phone outlet so you can have callerid overlaid on your TV for incoming calls? Or notifications of friends/etc logging onto IM or IRC servers, and the ability to 'page' you?
  • I know it's not widespread right now, but those of us that have it aren't likely to be very impressed by NTSC or PAL images (oh yeah, I'd like my Dolby Digital 5.1 sound too).

    My understanding is that TiVo will have an HDTV unit around the end of the year, until then I'm hanging onto my wallet (well, not exactly - I'm just buying different toys).
  • They seem to have their heads screwed on right. Customer centric, expandable design. Didn't see it said explicitly but I would hope you can mount the disks elsewhere on the network with samba so they don't have to make noise in the TV room.

    Looks more likely to be expandable to dtv and hdtv too, though the latter is probably something that requires new hardware to output to the hdtv.

    (What I want is a component architecture on 100mbit ethernet. The decoder should stick on the TV and take ethernet to it o
  • I'd buy one of these in a flash if it worked in Canada. Same with the tivo, I'd love to have one if it worked with Canadian listings.

  • Paving the road for better products (Score:3, Interesting)

    by seismic ( 91160 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @09:52PM (#6449468)
    This Telly device does seem expensive. What's exciting is the prospect of better, cheaper, and more mainstream products to come.

    When this concept becomes mainstream things will really get cool.

    It took mp3 players to legitimize the mp3 format and show consumers that audio cd's are limiting. It will take PVR/media playing hardware to do the same for movies and tv.

  • People missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)

    by msanchez426 ( 107282 ) on Tuesday July 15, 2003 @10:09PM (#6449571)
    You guys are really missing the point of this device. It's true it's similar to TIVO/ReplayTV but go and read everything in the web site:
    -This is a PVR and DVD player. The only TIVO that has this is the fancy panasonic for 1000$ that hasn't come out yet.
    -It's also a cdwriter and can be upgraded to a DVD writer in due time.
    -It's network transparent even for Windows/Mac people, no extra usb ethernet needed.
    -It's expandable without having to hack it, you can add two hard drives bought of the shelf. I'd put it in the infinite expandable category just for that. BTW the extra space will look like one volume.
    -It's standard linux, it has a web server, samba, etc. So it replaces whatever old box that you have lying around as a server, storage or whatever else.
    -You can access the interface which seems nicely done both directly and remotely via a web server.
    -As a plus it has all kinds of media playing capabilties: video, audio, photos.
    -The one linked is the analog one, there is also a digital version for 100$ bucks more.

    Finally, and very importantly they give you the SDK for producing your own software, they seem keen on open source and people developing their own little apps. So if you think a feature is missing, heck you can go and program it yourself. Isn't that the most important feature?

    That's on the positive side. The one thing that it seems to lack is replay as it records. But that should be fixable if we overflow their mailboxes with requests ;-)

    Disclaimer: I don't work for them or knew anything about them until I read this post but I've been waiting for just this since forever. It has everything I wanted in a tivo.

    Platy

  • Compare the prices... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A comparable TIVO would cost you the following:

    TIVO Series2 - $349.00
    Non-transferable lifetime subscription - $299.00
    Network Interface - $100.00
    DVD/CD burner - Unavailable
    TOTAL ------> $748.00

    Telly 80GB DVR - $899.00

    So $150.00 buys you:
    1. Privacy (nobody downloading your viewing habits)
    2. A cd burner
    3. Easy upgrades
    4. Unmatched hackability

    I for one was excited about this box becuae it does give me more freedom. I ABOSLUTELY FSCKN HATE the idea of subscriptions (on top of my already high cable bi

  • This device doesn't impress me. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by VPN3000 ( 561717 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @01:36AM (#6450469)
    For starters, I bought a Ultimate TV unit for DirecTV for about $35 after all the rebates. I know you anti-capitalists want 'freedom' to use digital recorders to record staticy broadcast or analog cable.. Yeah, you do that. I'll live in the 2000's, thank you very much. Any digital satellite service is superior to any cable or broadcast network on the planet in regards to quality, quality, and price. Want to argue about that? Ok. Fine. You have reality issues.

    Secondly, You could build a AMD K7 box, get a lian li mini ATX case (the new pancake fits in with AV components really well), 100 gig drive, ATI all in wonder pro, DVD, and a good sound card for less than this box -- but have greater performance. Plus you'll have access to all the great PC applications and HDTV outputs ($35 dongle required).

    You could also get a used Xbox and a mod chip for 1/5th the price of this thing and get most of the functionality with Xbox Media Player. It also supports HDTV..

    I'd suggest not getting excited and feeding the hype for these over-priced hacks. There's just no excuse to spend 900 bucks on something that doesn't do anything ground-breaking.

    • Re:This device doesn't impress me. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by anubi ( 640541 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @03:08AM (#6450749) Journal
      Dear VPN:

      I think you have a lot of us "anti-capitalists" and our open-source fanaticism all wrong. For many of us, the sticking point is *not* price, whether it be music or video recorders. The value is in our own ability to maintain/upgrade/customize whatever we have, and have the confidence that if anything at all goes wrong, we aren't held hostage at bugpoint at someone else's mercy. That's a good way to get raped.

      Its just a philosophy. Some of us are very uncomfortable with the idea that somebody else controls something we have. Its bad enough the government traces us and taxes us on our homes, cars, and jobs. But if there is anything the electrical power brokers in California have taught me, its don't let myself get cornered. Don't let businessmen ever get you in a spot where you have to do whatever they say in order to "protect" your investment. Our California governor Gray Davis made like a nice guy and gave in to all the guys who knew how to play him like a fiddle. Where did that get us? Was that Pro-Capitalism? Or was that greed and control gone horribly wrong?

      I don't like the idea of being a sharecropper.

      Nor do I want to try to build a long-term investment with ephemeral building blocks.

      If its a nice box, well designed, open source, etc, its worth the price. I don't expect to be subsidized by someone else who had a plan to force me into other business with them. I consider myself honest, but I have every expectation they be honest with me. Open source to me means they are willing to be completely honest with me and are holding no surprises. Its all on the table, subject to any verification I feel I need to do. In most cases, I probably won't verify anything at all, but should something not work as I expect, I may have to verify something.

      I wrote another post in another forum regarding my disappointment with a termite contractor. Nowhere did I say I was unhappy about price.. no, I was mostly lamenting on my inability to verify the quality and quantity of termiticide used. I have no problem with paying the man for work done, but when I have a fast one pulled on me, it really pisses me off. Do you think it would minimize the number of "fast ones" a termite contractor could pull on the public if he knew that the product he used could be verified? How would it look in a jury trial should one of his customers, who discovered his house had been "treated" with water asked the company to assume the costs of replacing the termite-damaged lumber in his house? Or, am I just being "anti-capitalist" here by suggesting that someone's work be open for verification?

      I am delighted to see this in Linux, as I fundamentally do not trust Microsoft. Nor do I trust that mechanic who claims he's going to work on my car, but goes to great lengths to make damn sure I can not observe nor verify his work. And I don't trust that termite guy either. ( But if he had given me a sample in my jug, then upon my suspicion something's wrong, I sent it off to my friend, and he found pyrethrins in the proper strength, my opinion of that contractor today would be completely different. )

  • Great idea, needs to cost $299 or less. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Wednesday July 16, 2003 @02:21AM (#6450627) Homepage
    It's a good idea, but about 3x too expensive and physically too big.

    When somebody makes this the size of a small DVD player and sells it for $249 at Wal-Mart, then it will take off.

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